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The Otome is bound to her Meister by a contract, she’s protecting him and the country/side they took on most of the time out of duty. The Otome is a war instrument.
The HiME is bound to her key by her feelings, she’s protecting the most important thing to her. The HiME represents the doom of the person she loves if she’s not ready to make any sacrifice for them.

To put it simply, in Otome, a lot of characters (Rosalie or Laura) will fight out of duty, to protect the master that was assigned to them. Others, like Arika, fight for their ideals and dreams. But in the end, they all analysed what was the right thing to do. They all took the path they saw they needed to take to see their dreams come true or to accomplish what was expected of them. It might be a hard path, but they chose it. That’s what I saw.
While in HiME, there isn’t any of this logic; because they simply never wanted to fight. They can’t analyse the situation accurately because there is no right answer to end up with. It’s not only a matter of logical thinking, there is no right thing to do. It's simple: kill or be killed… and the girls are scared to death of losing what means their world. So… depending on how scared she is, she will be able to lash out at friends, to take lives and destroy others.
So… seen like that, Otome is the head and HiME is the heart. To me, the heart is superior to the head. Because feelings are superior than logic. When you feel strongly about something, love, hate, fear, joy, you will often react before you think.
Humans are that way. Mai HiME is written to turn you upside down... Mai Otome is just a story. With dramatic twists, yes, but just a story.

Also, I couldn’t enjoy Otome’s characters as much because I was so taken with the returning cast. I never really cared about Arika’s struggle to find her mother or Nina and her problems with Sergei. I was too taken with Shizuru’s kick-ass appearances in the firsts eps or Miyu’s mysterious behaviour. I was much to eager to see Mai again.

Mai HiME, like stated in previous posts, was a masterpiece. Every character portrayed a concept, a question, an idea, something that made them come alive. They had reasons and real emotions. Acted like real persons. They all show us a part of the world and how it works. There is no HiME character that is one dimensional. (no character that gets decent screentime that is)
In Otome, Shiho is nothing else than comic relief, while in HiME she started happy, hopeful and ended up sickeningly jealous. Nao is the cool bad ass in Otome, while in HiME ultimately breaks down calling ‘mama’. Arika, to me, stays an anime character… while somehow I wouldn’t be so surprised if I saw Mai walk past me.

Otome wasn’t bad, far from it. It was superior to most animes I saw. But it still didn’t have that little something HiME had. It never took it further than a story, never made me cry. I often catch myself thinking it might have been more interesting if it had nothing to do with Mai HiME.

In a way, I dont like the reset ending of Hime.. but then again, it reset Shizuru and Natsuki... so

Ah... such a paradox

I liked Mai HiME better. Because it was more character related, the chracters felt more real, relatable to and alot more deeper... it was also darker and had lots of emotions and the main characters didnt irritate me as much as those of MO.. MO is good I guess... but it cant be compared to MH because MH is at the TOP... I think that very few Animes can be compared to MH.

both are equal ... each does better on diffent points ... HiME had a much more person-fixed look ... it was about the HiMEs ... and then the others ... whereas Otome as about the otomes and the world surrounding them and using them as living chess pieces ... theres a diffent ... HiME was more mircoemotionel theme whereas Otome had the diffent counties and their prime chess pieces in a more macroemotionel theme

in my opinion it is a problem that people sees Otome as the sequel to HiME and not a independent story which though is roughy based personel ...

in my opinion it is like if you have 2 hollywood movies with roughly the same actors and then call the newest bad because the former had the same actors

each does better on diffent points ... HiME had a much more person-fixed look ... it was about the HiMEs ... and then the others ... whereas Otome as about the otomes and the world surrounding them and using them as living chess pieces ... theres a diffent ... HiME was more mircoemotionel theme whereas Otome had the diffent counties and their prime chess pieces in a more macroemotionel theme

Thats true... equal in a sense, but its really based on personal personal preference isn't it, For example I think that MH is better than MO because for me I actually prefer a microemotional theme as you call it, coz it shows the details, the nitty-gritty stuff..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devilen

in my opinion it is a problem that people sees Otome as the sequel to HiME and not a independent story which though is roughy based personel ...

in my opinion it is like if you have 2 hollywood movies with roughly the same actors and then call the newest bad because the former had the same actors

Yeah i think the general consensus is that it was good on its own.. but its hard when the characters (mind you, not actors, but characters--actors play the characters, if you get what I mean) are not roughly the same; they ARE the same And anyhow the purpose of this thread is to compare both the series..

I like both equally. The characters are appealing, the settings are unique and interesting, and I'm always anticipating the next episode. Sure, both have faults. They aren't perfect shows and they don't pretend to be. If you can overlook that, both stand above the average anime.

Both stories play out differently. Hime was about the 12 hime being manipulated into fighting each other, while Otome was about a world of otome and how thier power is used. So Hime was more of a character drama, Otome was more like an adventure story.

Hime's biggest draw was the shock factor. It started slow, some might even say boring, hinting and teasing that there is something behind the scenes, and then bam! it hits you in the face with death after death and the image of the world Hime built in your mind gets knocked away with a sledgehammer every episode.

There is no way Otome could follow suit and have the same effect. So I think that is why it tried to be more grand and adventurous. I was just as hooked on the final arc of both Mai series, both kept me guessing as to what was going to happen next. It's easy for me to overlook something I would consider a flaw if my interest is kept despite it. If you let the flaws bring you down, it's easy to miss out on otherwise good stuff. That's how I look at it anyway.

I liked them about equally, though there's no doubt in my mind that the absolutely incredible 25-26 finale raised Otome up a lot in my mind.

Someone said of Hime: "It's a bag full of cliches, but sometimes that's a good thing."

And I think that's true of both series. But they've both got an incredibly charming, very human element that reminded me a lot of Stellvia no Uchia and PlanetES (which were probablly better series overall), that make them both entirely irresistable.

I think, if you were to take the characters from the serieses, and transplant them to an entirely mundane setting and tighten up some of the pacing, we'd still be transfixed by their lives and challenge and joy.

Though it'd be a shame to not see Miss Maria kicking all KINDS of ass.

Seriously, Samuel L Jackson-Miss Maria buddy flick. We never got to see what happened to Jules Winnfield after Vincent got wasted by Butch. My vision: He teams up with Miss Maria and they go on a madcap adventure through the Pacific Northwest, fightin' grizzly bears with their hands and shit!

"We should be fuckin' dead now, my friend! We just witnessed a miracle, and I want you to fucking acknowledge it! "
"Really... No matter what you do, you lack grace"

edit: Hmm... you know, speaking of characters and such... I think Arika as heroine is probablly a little more likeable than Mai as heroine, simply because she's faulted. Mai's sort of a reflection on the world she was thrust into, she didn't want the power and she'd as soon as have been rid of it if it could get things back to normal. Mai also is pretty capable in every role she's put into: She may not know how she what's going on, but damned if it's gonna cause too many problems for her. Antsy's more proactive and she faces a lot of moral doubt about her chosen role and difficulty in achieving her goals. Plus, you get the impression that for the most part, she's making it on the skin of her teeth.

I dunno, that's my interpretation. I mean, I like both of them, but it's hard not to root for the underdog.

I enjoid My Otome but Mai Hime had a lot more impact upon me. More drama, more turning points (f.e. oh my good the killed Takumi & Kazu Kun), more character envolvment, the characters where all full of emotions and their own reasons... And I liked Mai a lot more than Arika - which was quite funny but also quite annoying...

Personally, I hate Otome and love HiME. I found Otome boring, usually I only downloaded the subbed episodes about 3 days after they were relaeased because I just didn't care that much. With HiME, I came in late and I was downloading every day and obsessing over it. I still am.

Otome had the most boring action I have seen in an anime, especially since they were essentially weapons themselves. Drama is great, Plot is great, Character Development is great, unfortunately unless you pull these off wonderfully (which I don't think was done in Otome) then action is needed to keep some of us hanging on. Didn't happen. I didn't enjoy any of the fights in Otome, though I still haven't gotten 25 and 26 (been on a school camp for 3 days and generally not interested).

HiME on the other hand, is a masterpiece. Many people were let down by the ending- so was I. I was hoping for a more climatic fight. And no, I do not depend on fights to make a wonderful series, I just expected one from Mai and Mikoto. Despite what happened I still love it, even that last episode.

There is no question about it for me- I believe something should have been done with HiME rather than the creation of Otome. But, some of you guys like it, so I suppose they won a fair amount of people over, even if I wasn't one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sally60

...Otome had a more realistic setting and a plot that has less holes then HiME. It also didn't have any deathmatches and didn't glorify sadism. It missed out on a resurrection scene but that's acceptable since there wasn't too much suffering like in HiME...

Glorified sadism? I don't have a problem with anyone liking Otome more than HiME, it's whatever floats you boat, but sadism in HiME? Isn't that a little strong? You do know what sadism is, right? I don't recall Mikoto stabbing Tate repeatedly, Mai crying over him and Mikoto laughing. I don't recall any real sadism at all, unless you mean that they all fought each other a lot, because that isn't sadism. Or that Nagi and the OL laughed, because that was really just bad guys being bad guys. I can think of a lot more sadistic shows, and not anime, I mean normal prime time television. Think it over a little bit.

it AREN'T a sequal ... even though many sees it that way ... it is a movie with the same characters yes ... but there is lightyears (pun not intented) between the story in Mai Hime and the story in Mai Otome ... simply because the issues that need to be taken care of before the history is that diffent ... in HiME person just were HiME's either they liked it or not ... in Otome persons was chosen and could deny to join the school and they had to archknowlegde the facts before going into it ... and they had a easy way out of the whole system (by going in bed with 'who-bloody-cares' and do it) ... the issues and the world is while on the top of it looks similar ... but they are in fact much diffent between each of them

Mai-HiME really drew me in and kept my attention throughout the whole series. I enjoyed the drama, the music, the action, and a lot of the characters. I feel the ONLY minus Mai-HiME had was the "reset ending." Although technically it wasn't a reset in the truest sense since I'm pretty sure their memories were still intact. It's true I wanted some sort of pyrrhic victory, but another "happy ending" would have been better if it had been handled differently.

Then there's Otome.

It had the potential to be as good as if not better than HiME, and I recognized that. I was hooked during the first 12 episodes and I had the "WHAT'S HAPPENING NEXT???" anticipation. I never questioned the obvious lack of battles. I liked some of the characters and their relationships, their dilemmas. Then after episode 17, or was it 18... well after the episode where "the shit hit the fan" I finally saw some cracks. Otome failed to keep my attention afterwards and the whole "war" felt like a farce.

No, I wasn't mad that my favourite HiME characters weren't the focus of the show. No, I am not a "PEOPLE GOTS TO DIE, DROP LIKE FLIES!!" type of guy, but I stopped caring. Erstin's death wasn't very well done. The only really "touching" moment was Aoi's sacrifice.
You'd think with an international war going on there would be more "action."
In the end Mai-Otome is going to be compared to HiME, and that's not the fault of the viewer. It's difficult for me to rate Otome without using some other series as a standard. Overall Otome's story wasn't as strong as HiME's.
Otome had this problem with too many important characters. While it wasn't a problem for the returning cast to not recieve much development, some newer characters didn't get any spotlight either. This was very evident and the team did their best with the overwhelming amount of characters they had, perhaps even better than Gundam SEED Destiny.

Uh... anyway, my vote definitely goes to Mai-HiME as the better of the two, much much better.

im just saying mai-otome was stupid cause everyone forgot who mai's brother was and that how does midori chan have her child still and some thing happened to mikoto's brother (reito) that he turned into a cyborg... and the story was stupid they should of never even mad mai-otome,, or they should of made it as a sequel, cause it is completely different story and they dont even how mai alot, when the title is (mai-otome),, it is the worst anime i have ever seen

im just saying mai-otome was stupid cause everyone forgot who mai's brother was and that how does midori chan have her child still and some thing happened to mikoto's brother (reito) that he turned into a cyborg... and the story was stupid they should of never even mad mai-otome,, or they should of made it as a sequel, cause it is completely different story and they dont even how mai alot, when the title is (mai-otome),, it is the worst anime i have ever seen

Wow... this post makes my eyes bleed. Let me show you what English is supposed to look like:

Quote:

Originally Posted by hokysioh

I'm just saying, Mai Otome was stupid because everyone forgot who Mai's brother was. Also, how does Midori-chan still have her Child? What happened to Mikoto's brother (Reito) that turned him into a cyborg? The story was stupid; they should have never even made Mai Otome, or they should have made it as a sequel, because it is a completely different story. They don't even show Mai a lot, when the title is Mai Otome. It is the worst anime I have ever seen.